Stop. Redeeming. Evil

It’s gotten so predictable at this point and it cheapens the concept.

Sometimes there is not some greater good behind contemptible actions, sometimes evil is done for purely selfish reasons or simply because one can.

Is Sylvanas pitiable? Absolutely, she was brutally murdered and forced into an unholy existence against her will and, at heart, she just wants to live. And after working so hard to avenge herself on her murderer, she realized with horror that no cheerful afterlife awaited her due to her committing acts that would be considered evil in order to accomplish her goal.

But this is the point at which she willfully chose to embrace evil of her own volition by working with the Jailer to escape the hellish existence of the Maw. What she did from this point wasn’t for her people, it was all for HER.

Now I get it, believing you’re destined for the equivalent of WoW Hell would do a number on just about anyone and probably see you scramble to find any way of avoiding it. Even genocide wouldn’t be off the table at that point if it was your immortal soul destined for torment if you perished.

But…the thing is, she never once tried to find a better way. Instead of considering that if her actions condemned her to torment then by definition they could also redeem her, she took the selfish path and embraced that evil because it was easier than accepting that she was the one who’d have to change.

And that’s what makes her such a compelling villain as well as why her end should follow the same pattern. She is a TRAGEDY because she was not born evil but chose to become beholden to her flaws that were steadily magnified until her fall was irreversible.

She presents Blizzard with a prime opportunity to showcase how evil can be born from something as simple as fear, in her case the fear of death. She didn’t want to die because she knew what awaited her, but instead of understanding why she had come to that place she chose to become beholden to her innate selfishness.

It was Azeroth’s fault, the Shadowland’s fault, it was everyone’s fault but HERS. In the end, her existence became defined by the personality flaws she knew existed but willfully chose to embrace instead of correct. In the end, she was a coward who took the easy way out by blaming the world instead of herself and chose to inflict immense suffering on it to keep the claws of the Maw at bay for just a little longer.

She does not deserve redemption because there was no greater good to her actions, she was simply trying to stave off eternal torment that, deep down, she knew she deserved. She is a monument to her own selfish refusal to change and that’s what makes her truly evil.

So I implore Blizzard…don’t trivialize that by giving her a way out. Let evil be shown to be evil. Redemption should only come with a desire to change and she does NOT want to, please don’t reward her with something she hasn’t earned.

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It’s not wholly confirmed if she’s going to be redeemed, hold off on this for just a bit.

They could also be talking about the “Sylvanas isn’t going to be a raid boss loot pinata” expectation.

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She may not be redeemed in the end true, but given their history with similar characters that they’ve been overly attached to like Kerrigan, I’m seeing too many uncomfortable parallels to be confident they won’t make that same mistake once again.

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You will hear me ring the alarm bell and scream like a neanderthal if they do another Kerrigan or do anything of the sort, but, this sort of subject shouldn’t be approached half-cocked.

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To be fair, Sylvanas has been the recipient of quite a bit of contrived plot armor for awhile now so there is a pattern behind the developers actions surrounding her.

I hope I’m wrong, I just have a sinking sensation otherwise.

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Lets not be too eager to put the cart before the horse here, but I do agree with this premise.

Even if “redemption” were possible, Sylvanas is seemingly so convinced that she’s correct in what she’s doing that its very unlikely she see’s any reason to need such a thing. Redeemed for what? Forgiven for what? She “sees the world as it really is” right? She’s effectively gone full on FF villain here, with how much of an omnicidal nihilist she’s become. Even has the white hair.

Sylvanas does not seek to get better … and just about the only way I can fathom a way out of SLs where she’s not a “villain” (not even a hero or anti-hero), is for her world-view to be proven completely wrong. Her ideology that she is so convinced of that she turned herself into a monster needs to proven nothing more than a lie by the Jailor to make her convenient for his goals. She is a tool, a discard able one one, just like her Forsaken and the Horde were. Then, and only then, she might adopt the vengeance mantle enough to not go out a total baddie in the end.

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This is the one thing that I’m afraid of as well.

A redemption would cheapen the story and bring it down a lot. I’d say just kill here off. Maybe even let her have a last moment with Nathanos and that’s it. After that, just let her die.

And just like Gladwell said, I will be screaming like a Neanderthal if that happens. It already rubs me the wrong way how they made everyone else around her dumber and be out of character just to make her look smarter. This will only pass me off even more.

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I am honestly unsure how you could really get Sylvanas to a redeemed state. She seems to honestly think the universe is fundamentally unfair and needs to be totally destroyed and remade. This obviously cannot be permitted, on account that it results in everyone being erased from existence. Getting her to reject that notion would undo her fundamental character design and be totally hamfisted.

Her entire goal of dismantling the universe all at once is a very Thanos proposition, with similar delusional “for the greater good” thinking and stakes for the universe at large.

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They’ll find a way.

Just look at what they did with Illidan.

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When did she say she wanted to unmake the entire universe? I thought she “only” wanted to overthrow the realm of death.

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She wants to destroy the balance between life and death in the universe.

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I mean, Blizzard has literally redeemed evil characters before by not changing or by retconning their world view.
After all, with Blizzard’s story, all things are possible!

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It is in the last paragraphs of Shadows Rising, where she has inner monologue about how she was tired of being the “plaything of an unjust cosmos” and how she was going to tear down the foundations of the whole system.

It was also in the Shadowlands into website that Zovval and associates (sylvanas included) were running an elaborate conspiracy to unmake the universe. Even some of the prepatch NPCS have lines like “Let the unmaking begin!”

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We don’t need redemption and we don’t need to cull every bit of darkness from this world.

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True… but I am not sure “Mass murder and attempted genocide are okay!” is a message Blizzard really wants to put out there.

I’d say they charged up a pretty negative viewpoint of her, which given it seems the option to side with her was not in the original plot for BFA seems to of been the real intended goal. She tried to get us killed repeatedly, even if you DID side with her, knowing she was going to send you to supermax hell to be tormented into a weapon of the guy who plans to destroy the universe.

Illidan I never really saw as redeemed. He was still presented as a horridly reckless and narcissistic person, and that never changed. He just was /useful/ for our own goals of ending the threat of the Legion, and so we tolerated him.

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I really do think its way overblown about Sylvanas possible redemption.

All based on vague statements from blizzard developers who have outright lied before.

I would hardly take it as gospel.

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This is honestly the biggest issue I had with BfA. The Horde (and the Alliance, though earlier in the story) got entirely sanitized of any dubious characters by the end, because Blizz seems to think that darkness must be scrubbed clean from the narrative within the same expansion it’s introduced now.

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They ignored it with Illidan, they can do so again.

This is true though. A playable race being the target meant that Blizzard was forced to put attention on it, and not handwave it away.

If this is the standard for (non) redemption, they could have Sylvanas not be “redeemed” yet still get away.

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She’s seeking vindication not redemption.

Hopefully people get that distinction; she and Arthas at this point DESERVE each other. In the Maw. Forever. Same damn statistic of ends-justify-the-means villain arc.

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What is the point of “dubious” characters in the Alliance if Blizz never allows them to act on it? Or when they do their “dubious” actions are buried under a mountain of justifications? Especially since the Horde having them is constantly used as an excuse to villain bat us, break us further and further down, then never bother building us back up again?

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